


So Artistically Done

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Despite the absolutely TRIGGERING title, F/M, For no reason except to be ornery I guess, Humor, I wrote this in 20 minutes I'm sorry, Is this what crack feels like?, Sort of kind of fluff, Space Art, This is a lot less hurtful than most Thrawn fics I write, This is a story in which Faro teases the everliving shit outta Thrawn, Thrawn's artistic skills (or lack thereof)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: "With your love of art," said Faro musingly, "it's surprising you can't draw."She'd never seen Thrawn look so blatantly affronted before.
Relationships: Karyn Faro/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	So Artistically Done

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you coffeeberry and PiercetheVeils for writing amazing Faro/Thrawn stories and please forgive me for adding my own half-crack nonsense to the tag

“It’s 1300 Pre-Em,” Thrawn said, his head cocked as he examined the painting. Faro didn’t know where he got his holo-displays, but she knew one thing for sure: as soon as he was done lecturing her, she was going to ask. And as soon as she had her answer, she was flying straight to the market to get one for herself; she’d never seen a holo before that could so lovingly recreate the detail and color of an original object.

“A traditional light landscape by a Shadda-Bi-Boran sun priest,” Thrawn explained. He ran two fingers along the edge of the painting, indicating a splatter of white and blue paint that curved over what, to Faro, looked nothing like a landscape at all. “You can see the Tears of Zylun asteroid belt arcing over the horizon, here,” Thrawn said.

“Studying a new enemy?” Faro asked.

“I think not,” said Thrawn, eyes still on the painting. “The Shadda-Bi-Borans required an enzyme activated by light from their star Shadda to cleanse toxins from their bloodstream. The enzyme could not be reproduced; when Shadda cooled into a white dwarf, the inhabitants of its system were killed.”

The story rang a bell — Faro remembered seeing kerchiefs and armbands made of handcrafted Shadda silk when she was a child, always tied around the neck of a wealthy aristocrat or the arm of a visiting Senator.

“So you’re just studying it for entertainment, sir?” she said.

Thrawn gave her an arch look for that, but evidently couldn’t deny it. In the span of his silence, Faro glanced around the room at all the paintings and sculpts limned in holographic blue light. There was no real, physically-present art anywhere in the command room; not for the first time, she wondered what it would look like if the walls were rimmed with real canvas and real paint.

“With all your love of art,” said Faro musingly, “it’s surprising you can’t draw.”

She’d never seen Thrawn look so blatantly affronted before. “I can draw,” he said with an iciness so over-the-top that Faro could barely hold back her amusement. He reached forward and stabbed the holo-display’s off button, making all the holos around the room disappear at once. “I can paint, too, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Faro, biting back a smile. “I don’t know why, I just thought—”

Thrawn wheeled on her, red eyes flashing. “Did Commander Vanto tell you I can’t draw?” he demanded. His Basic, Faro noted, sounded suspiciously natural when he was upset.

“Well,” she said, reluctantly forcing herself to actually concentrate on the question — since it was apparently _such_ a big deal — “He didn’t say it _quite_ like that, no.”

“What did he say?” Thrawn asked. His eyes were narrow now, his posture preposterously stiff and his hands clasped behind his back. Faro had seen the same tension in him before — on battlefields, when things weren’t going according to plan. 

“Let me concentrate, sir,” she said placatingly, still swallowing her own private amusement. “I’m trying to remember his exact words.”

Tension radiated through the air between them like energy off a vibroblade. Thrawn’s jaw was clenched, his mouth tight, as he waited for Faro to ‘remember.’

“He said,” Faro started slowly, “that it was funny someone so scientifically-inclined was also so interested in art. But then he said it makes sense, because while you enjoy looking at paintings, it’s not like you can actually paint, yourself. It’s like holo critics who can tear a film apart if they want to but never actually make one themselves.”

Thrawn’s lips parted, showing bared teeth. He made an absolutely ludicrous noise that Faro, out of respect for her commander, would label a ‘scoff’ and not a ‘hiss.’

“Was that inaccurate, sir?” asked Faro innocently.

Thrawn made a visible attempt to regain his composure, but the lines of tension remained mapped across his face. “ _Quite_ inaccurate,” he bit out. Faro opened her mouth — ready to apologize or antagonize him more, she wasn’t sure which — but before she could say anything, he was moving around his desk with a purpose.

He pulled the stationery drawer open so harshly that it rattled on its runners. Faro’s eyebrows quirked when Thrawn removed a scuffed tin box and slapped it down on the desktop. After another moment of rummaging, he pulled out a pad of coarse, thick, off-white flimsi.

“Everyone has talents,” said Thrawn, his voice _almost_ neutral as he flipped open the pad of flimsi to a blank page. “One must decide which talents to nurture and which to lay aside; I may not practice art as a career, Commodore, but that doesn’t mean I’ve entirely left it behind.”

Faro’s lips twitched, but she successfully managed to hold back a laugh. “Of course, sir,” she said; her neutral tone was a lot more convincing, she thought, than Thrawn’s.

Somehow, he seemed to sense something disingenuous about it anyway and glanced up, however briefly, to skewer her with a cold look that just barely managed not to be a glare. It was only a brief cold look, though — he looked away again a moment later, all attention focused on the flimsi pad and the small tin box he’d popped open. 

Faro watched, at first exasperated and then genuinely fascinated, as Thrawn removed a series of foreign, old-fashioned-looking brushes from the box. He unsealed his tunic and shrugged it off, hanging it on the back of his chair with an absent-minded all-business air. Wearing only his undershirt now, he bent over the desk, broke open a wax container, and spread a thin layer of oil over the flimsi; a moment later, it turned the pale-blue translucent color of ice.

Thrawn held one of the brushes up to the light and tapped it, causing a tube embedded in the wood handle to glint and swirl. When he laid the thistles of the brush against the now-translucent surface, color swirled out of it and onto the page. 

Faro fought hard to keep her face neutral as Thrawn worked. Within ten minutes, she could tell what he was sketching. Within twenty, it was there — the paint still wet, the details minute and true-to-life. 

He’d painted the Chimaera. He’d painted it so well it looked like a holo. 

Thrawn slid the loose sheet of flimsi toward her and straightened up, giving her that arch look again. It was even less effective now than it had been before; Faro’s eyes caught on his bare arms, on the blue-black hair falling over his eyes, on the smears of paint dotting his fingers, his wrists — his jawline, where he’d rested his hand for just a moment without thinking.

Swallowing hard, Faro glanced down at the painting of the Chimaera. “Impressive, sir,” she said flatly. “I guess.”

Thrawn’s eyebrows twitched. “You guess?” he repeated, voice husky and low, almost unrecognizable. Faro did her best to affect a disinterested shrug.

“Well,” she said with faux reluctance, “I mean, it’s not exactly a landscape or a portrait, is it? Anyone can draw architecture with a bit of practice and a straight-edge.”

Thrawn held her eyes, his face perfectly, dangerously blank. “You wish for me to paint a portrait, then?” he asked.

Throat suddenly tight, Faro could only shrug. Thrawn, leaning over the desk with all his weight on his palms, stared up at her a moment longer before looking away. After a moment, sighing so quietly Faro couldn’t be sure she really heard it, he straightened and opened the stationery drawer again.

This time, he pulled out something Faro recognized as a good old-fashioned sketchbook. He tossed it her way carelessly and she caught it at an awkward angle, so that it flipped open in her hands before she could consciously decide to take a peek.

Her breath caught; she could feel her cheeks flaring and turned away automatically so Thrawn wouldn’t see her blush.

There were endless portraits overlapping each other in the sketchbook, and each and every face was recognizable to her. There was Hammerly, Pyrondi, Skerris — dozens of stormtroopers she knew by name but couldn’t recognize by the faces inscribed by Thrawn’s pen — there were sketches of Vader and a young, handsome man Faro didn’t recognize, his hair over-long and his face marred by a scar. More than any of these, there was Eli Vanto, each detail of his face lovingly rendered.

And even more than Eli Vanto, there was her.

Her own face jumped out at her over and over again, from every page, displayed from every angle. There she was with Pyrondi at the weapons display, her brow knotted in concentration. There she was in the mess hall with Commander Durand, her lips pulled back in a half-smile. There she was on the bridge — at the training gym — planet-side, in the light of a natural sun.

“As you can see,” said Thrawn from behind her, his voice soft, “I can draw.”

Faro turned to meet his eyes, a question on her lips, words dying in her throat.

“I simply had no reason to show you until now,” Thrawn said.


End file.
